Trio 18 came to a quick end on about the sixth ankheg in the nest which was the first activity of our day.
Dire ran with 1hp left and Croppy stepped in. He took a hit, gulped a potion. Dire returned with his bow, and Croppy took another hit. He gulped another potion and ran but an acidic spit shot after him and he tried to gulp again with no success.
(There followed a discussion about suitable levels and armour for doing the ankhegs but Croppy lies dead by his principles and would have it no other way... other than being a darned sight more lucky)
After almost constantly pushing boundaries in the run to date, today's session saw generally much more straight-forward progress. Much of the reason for that was owing to the initial target being the Ring of Gaxx. Scrolls of PfU were used to deal with the City Gates lich and the Elemental Lich. However, when we moved on to the Shade Lich it was able to spot Nearv coming - due to a MP glitch meaning that moving between areas can destroy buffs. Things looked as though they could be painful when the lich chased after Nearv and threw up a time stop.
However, it failed to do much with that and Tens was able to shoot it down. Fresh scrolls were applied before moving on to Kangaxx. The only weapon we had that could hit the demi-lich was Daystar being used non-proficiently by Nearv - but that was more than enough.
Moving on to Mae'Var's tasks, Tens led the way to Rayic's house. With the benefit of regeneration he didn't bother buffing for the mephits on the ground floor - they did plenty of elemental damage, but not enough to really worry him.
The golems were actually more troublesome, as only Nearv could damage them. However, skeleton warriors provided enough distraction for Nearv to kill the first and Tens put his plate on to tank the second.
Upstairs, Rayic was unable to deal with skeletons.
In the guild house itself the thieves made little impression on Tens (once more dressed in plate). Downstairs, Mae'Var succumbed to a backstab. The cleric did have the opportunity to cast a couple of spells, but didn't make much use of them.
Another occasion to highlight Tens' lack of a +2 weapon was the appearance of Del and her acolytes in search of Sansuki. Tens could hit the lesser vampires, but not Del. However, rather oddly, Del and the other vampire both immediately took bat form and ran away when their companion was killed.
Looking for a weapon upgrade, the next task was to run through Aran Linvail's tasks and then head for the Graveyard in search of the Mace of Disruption (and the Staff Mace). An orog ambush on the way triggered with Nearv visible, so he ran the enemies around at one end of the map, while Tens summoned a couple of skeletons at the other - greater command and hold person then made the battle easy.
At the Graveyard, the tombs were cleared before heading underground. Pai'Na and her spiders were potentially pretty dangerous to Nearv, but by this time Tens had a saving throw against poison of 1 and was happy to provide a focus of attention for them. His greater command put plenty of spiders out of action anyway and, though Pai'Na saved against that, she was mown down within a few seconds.
Tens made use of chaotic commands in the vampire HQ to protect himself against domination and played the standard game of providing a target for opponents while Nearv sneaked round behind them for a backstab. One of those didn't quite finish off Tanova, but Tens had also sneaked up on her and was able to complete the job before she buffed.
The intention for the fight downstairs was for Tens to gather up the enemies before Nearv came in and activated a Daystar sunray. However, his stealth broke prematurely and he was dominated before the sunray burst. Possibly because that meant that a 'friend' had attacked them, the enemies continued to attack Nearv despite the domination and Tens was unable to save him.
After using the Rod of Resurrection, it was time to go back upstairs and use the MoD to destroy Lassal. Bodhi was then rapidly sent on her way with the help of another successful backstab.
Thinking that it would be nice to further improve his mace, the final action saw Neb losing his head before any child spirits could intervene.
The illithium made a nice coating for the iMoD.
Tens, cleric 11 / ranger 109, 118 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 234 kills (+195 in BG1)
Nearv, assassin 16, 86 HPs (incl. 7 from ioun stone), 154 kills (+158 in BG1), 2 deaths
Blaggerd and co make their way to Yaga Shura, continued from here.
The Forest of Mir is on the way to the Marching Mountains. A Master Wraith has sufficient resources, i.e. a vampiric wraith, to level-drain Wilson and forces him to retreat. By this time we have de-buffed the Master Wraith and are setting about him with a vengeance.
(oops, didn't crop the dialogue box out like I intended!)
A skeletal party are waiting for us slightly further in. Our Planetar vorpals their assassin as we arrive and once we drop their mage it becomes simple to mop the rest up. Or so we think, as Wilson is FoD'd.
The Planetar expires part way through raising Wilson so we summon another to do the deed before speaking to Nyalee. She tells us how to weaken Yaga Shura and our next destination will be the Marching Mountains.
On our arrival there we are attacked by Fire Giants and Burning Men, and kill a small group of Bhaalspawn too. Then we move inside the Fire Giant temple and make relatively smooth progress (compared to my usual struggle inside). Sarevok has been using the Wave Halberd against elementals and Crom Faeyr against trolls. He concludes the action by using the Wave halberd to one-shot Imix.
We return to Nyalee and although she weakens Yaga Shura she then has a change of mind, or heart, and attacks us. We defend ourselves robustly and leave none alive.
From there we travel to the Siege Camp and our first attack brutally injures Yaga Shura to a point where he most certainly should expire. He finds a way to leave and we use Mass Invisibility to both hide and buff slightly for his return. We move slightly and find him again, from there Blaggerd takes a moment or two longer to activate Greater Whirlwind than his companions. He misses his target once but others do not and Yaga Shura is dead.
Party equipment:
Blaggerd briefly off-handed the Axe of Unyielding +5 instead of Belm +2. He has now switched to Yaga Shura's shield.
Sarevok has equipped Yaga Shura's armour and a strength girdle.
Rasaad has given Sarevok his previous girdle and equipped a better one from the Marching Mountains temple.
I cleared the rest of the ghasts from the Tower and gave Riggilo a lock of hair before providing him with a mercy killing as he crawled towards me.
The Greenstone Amulet provided access to the tome there before I ventured out on to the roof to kill a number of basilisks.
At the Nashkel Mine I stayed invisible most of the way to find Mulahey. He unwisely believed my story of being there on behalf of Tazok, after suffering a first skull trap from the shadows, and died to a second of those.
I successfully learnt web there and made immediate use of that on the Amazons.
Nimbul also got stuck and provided me the opportunity to summon a familiar.
Back in Beregost I killed some spiders and webbed Silke to get me to the level cap.
Tranzig was held by a web long enough to lose morale and he was finished off as he tried to run.
At the FAI, I returned Landrin's things and picked up the pantaloons. Rather than go on to the Bandit Camp though, I went to visit the Lighthouse area. More webs there were a precursor to malison and skull traps for the sirines.
Inside the cave, I just ran the golems round rather than resorting to invisible blocking with the familiar. One of the golems took advantage of that by hiding in a wall to get an attack in, but that was their lot.
I've just arrived at the Bandit Camp ready for next time.
Wrecking Crew {23} - dwarf fighters (update 1) Last run
The Wrecking Crew were the first of my single-class parties. Although their early adventures were in an unmodded game, for quite a while their attempts have been in an SCS installation (and latterly with LoB as well). That's caused them problems from several perspectives - including the greater difficulty of breaking down mage defenses and the SCS tendency to pick on the weakest character (often causing chunkings, which I count as ending a run). As a result they've tended to struggle around the end of BG1 and early BG2 when saving throws are still pretty vulnerable and my lack of buffing is most noticeable.
This time I thought I'd give them another run out in an unmodded installation. Their aim will be to do a completionist run. In the unlikely event they get far enough, that will include descending into Watcher's Keep as it's a long time since I did that.
The first significant source of XP was the sirines in Beregost temple - using Algernon's blood-spattered cloak to tempt them outside for disposal.
Only one of the sirines lasted long enough to try a charm - and Baby Face saved against that. There was more easy XP from following Korax round at the basilisk area and they all picked up a couple of quick levels doing that.
While Korax was still on their side they destroyed Kirian's party before clearing the remainder of the area.
Kirian & co had provided some sort of armor for everyone, but still generally substandard. The 3 Flaming Fist south of Beregost all had plate mail though to give much better protection.
They ticked off the area north of Beregost, while picking up the belt of piercing. Then it was back to High Hedge where the Crew picked up their 4th level while clearing the exterior area.
A bit of bonus XP came from shooting the golems with the +1 arrows taken from Baerin.
With the route to the FAI established, the Crew returned south to open up the road to Nashkel. Before going there though they nipped over to the Lake area. With a full party I decided to kite Drizzt rather than just rely on the gnolls. The main potential problem doing that is if he charms someone, so the character being targeted by charms ran out of sight while the spell was casting and was replaced by another - both attempted charms failed anyway though and Drizzt failed to get an attack in while the criticals slowly mounted.
Mad Dog ran out of the throwing axes bought in Candlekeep during the fight against Drizzt and acted as the target while clearing the rest of the area.
Looking to complete their nefarious activities for the moment, the Crew returned north. Tenya got her bowl back, though she was able to proclaim her success directly to her god a bit sooner than she might have wanted.
Then it was on to Ulgoth's Beard to shoot Dushai down - reducing reputation to 3.
Looking to restore reputation a bit before venturing into civilized areas, they went in search of Arabelle. While there, they cleared the rest of that area - including picking up a +1 two-handed sword for Al. Getting a lift with Brage then saw them arrive in Nashkel with a safe reputation of 5. The ankheg armor found there meant everyone could dress in plate mail or better. Al also learnt LMD while resting.
Greywolf provided a sword upgrade at the Nashkel Mine area and the Crew decided to do the mine as well while clearing the area. They rested up for quite a while in Mulahey's cave to cure all the trap damage taken while fully exploring the mine, then attacked the cleric. He opened his mouth to shout for help - but failed to utter a word after being hit by an impressive 3 critical hits in a row from the Crew's opening salvo.
Reporting in to the mayor was enough for the Crew to push on to level 5.
Before resting though Al led the way back to Beregost to talk to Firebead and Mr Colquetle - raising reputation to 10 so that he learnt CLW. As soon as that was done he got caught stealing to push it back to 9 again.
Nimbul was shot down before the Crew went back to the rear exit to the mine and cleared that area - including the amazons, who failed to complete any spells.
At least they started a couple though - unlike Nimbul and Tranzig. He did though leave a clue to the location of the Bandit Camp and that will be the next destination after a trouble-free first session.
Blaggerd has a nice easy run until encountering "the usual speedbump". Will his plans go to plan, continued from here.
After killing Yaga Shura it becomes clear that a second Pocket Plane challenge room is available. Blaggerd and his party buff and call forth a Planetar before entering the room. Inside they find another Blaggerd. He might be Evil Blaggerd, or More Evil Blaggerd. Or Less Evil Blaggerd. Regardless, he's a dead Blaggerd.
We are bid by Melissan to head to Amkethran via the Oasis. This is was guarded by Jamis Tombelthen and his army. We exit the area somewhat bloodied (not us Bhaalspawn though think Blaggerd and Imoen we don't want to bleed when these other four can). If we ever meet Zaranda Rhindaun there will be a regicide the likes of which have not seen since the City of Caverns...
Amkethran is being run by Balthezar and after a brief discussion he locks himself away in a fortified building. We sell the hoard of looted gear all stamped with Tombelthen's branding for muchos gold and ask Neera plus Imoen to test out their new chain contingency spells (courtesy of headgear-contrived 18 intelligence apiece). It works fine, albeit a little slow as Sarevok's Runehammer has beaten Blaggerd's iMod to destroy Vongoethe the lich. Still, a test is a test.
Kerrach the smith takes a liking to our silver pantaloons but doesn't mention the bronze ones. Blaggerd has been thinking to go to Sendai's enclave first (yes he is worried and a little scared about the dragons at the other enclave).
Actually he's very scared. Draconis has a good record against his patron. Rather too good.
He checks his casters have their contingencies, and have summoned a few skeleton warriors. Then he tells everyone to stand their ground while he goes to parley with Draconis. As expected, it ends poorly and Draconis unloads spells onto him. Blaggerd is unaffected by the physical attacks from Draconis and his invisible stalkers but the spell effects are working. Oops - Blaggerd realises the Cloak of Mirroring would be a good idea but too late now.
After trading a few blows Blaggerd gets Draconis badly wounded and retreats to switch to a ranged weapon. A few shots later and Draconis reveals his true form and blisters Blaggerd with acidic brown dragon breath. Yeuch.
Blaggerd gulps a potions and runs towards the party. He runs to their right and behind them but Draconis goes invisible just as they sight him.
The party scatters, and Draconis re-appears. Blaggerd sees the Chain Contingencies have not happened so maybe they are wasted. Sarevok, Rasaad and Wilson have used Greater Whirlwind and are closing in so Blaggerd shouts for Imoen and Neera to use their Spell Sequencers.
Then the Chain Contingencies kick in (2x Pierce Shield and 4x Wilt). It may have only been a few seconds but it felt like an eternity. Which it is, for Draconis as 244 spell damage overwhelms him.
Blaggerd breathes a huge sigh of relief and tries not to think of the large and no doubt very angry blue dragon ensconsed in his enclave. Did he mention that dragons were scary?
So as Trio 18 bit the dust early in the session, we rolled another group. This group is a bit squishy, and Corearcher didn't get a lot of chances to actually do "archer" business, as he often had to tank since his party members weren't up to task.
Here is Corearcher's stats:
and here are his group mates:
We tried out the basilisks early - this went well, since Scurvy was able to protect everyone with PfP. As for Kirian's party, a triple stinking cloud insured that ranged attacks would carry the day - hardly in doubt with an archer plinking away.
Menty suggested Ankhegs, but Corearcher thought was dubious, as no one can even wear any armor better than leather. Instead, Corearcher suggested sirines, hoping his natural elven charm resistance would come in handy. So they went to the pirate cave area.
For the first group, stinking clouds proved effective. Corearcher used a potion of clarity on the 2nd group of sirines. For the golems, Menty and Scurvy ran around the golems while Corearcher took out the golems with +1 arrows. This worked, though we took plenty of damage.
We tried stinking cloud on the sirines just south of Candlekeep, but this was not anywhere near as effective, as two sirines maneuvered around the clouds. Corearcher decided to see just how well his natural charm would keep him safe - his charm resistance saved him every time! Corearcher did take plenty of damage from the Sirine arrows, but antidotes and potions of healing was able to keep Corearcher intact.
Corearcher took his team to the carnival to rest and heal themselves up - we ended our session here.
Will Blaggerd get to see how angry the big blue dragon is. Continued from here.
After disposing of the greeting party within Abazigal's lair we are faced with four pools each containing a tunnel. When we find one of the tunnels is short enough to swim through we emerge to be confronted by Frost Salamanders. Blaggerd starts to cast a protective buff onto Sarevok who switches to the Wave halberd. It's a veritable slaughter.
We've been doing so well though many many sessions. Hey! Bondari! NO!
Bondari has returned to us waving some bronze pantalettes. Sometimes you just don't ask questions, and this is one of those times. Really, don't ask.
We continue our search for a scroll of reversal. It's not too challenging to pick one up but on our way out of that chamber we all race away with our boots of speed and poor Wilson plods along behind us (not certain but I remember him being faster pre v2.5). Although we have cleared the area more enemies turn up and set his fur alight. Blaggerd throws him a potion of invisibility then remembers Wilson can only use healing potions. Wilson gulps one of those and makes a slow run for it but is too slow. This leads to another Planetar revival once we get to safety.
Blaggerd decides to return to Amkethran where Kerrick forges a Big Metal Unit for us together with a weapon and ammunition. Blaggerd has to confirm that Wilson can use neither then hands them to Rasaad although Sarevok could be a candidate for ranged weaponry.
The scroll of reversal is used to free a guardian dragon and we enter the chamber where Abazigal is tucked away. Sarevok Waves away all the Frost Salamanders inside then we buff. Helmets, a shield and additional buffs to protect each of us against electricity are used. Neera and Imoen add Chain Contingencies out of sight then a Planetar and the rest of us converge on Abazigal who is actually a humanoid. We each use our Whirlwind, saving Greater Whirlwinds in case we need them and he quickly starts to bleed all over the floor. Blaggerd orders us to stand back and shoot while the Planetar remains.
It's a good call and Abazigal does the same as Draconis, erupting into a huge dragon form.
We all use Hardiness followed by Greater Whirlwind as Imoen and Neera move in to support us. Sarevok takes some initial damage then Abazigal attacks Rasaad. The monk stands firm for a second or two then turns to run. We're doing heavy damage so think we'll be OK with some Spell Sequencers cast but then Chain Contingency wipes out the remainder of Abazigal's resolve.
Our victory is not flawed, and with the big blue dragon floored we return to the Pocket Plane to forge some armour out of his scales. While there we face down the Slayer challenge. We make a decent start and settle in for a protracted grind only to discover one of the Chain Contingency spells had not fired against Abazigal.
Sarevok now has the Flail of Ages (+5) at his disposal - building up a diverse range of weapons to select against each opponent or group of enemies.
After a slightly saner session last time, we were keen to get back to normal today - and once again rely on the good will of Lady Luck to see us through.
The first action was tame enough, when we went to expose some kidnappers and recover the silver pantaloons. Camitis is quite tough and survived 2 backstabs from Nearv before eventually going down.
However, when we went in search of a relic for the Lathander temple, trouble struck with a vengeance. Tens was searching for a contact in the Slums and didn't notice, until it was too late to hide, Tanova and a couple of other vampires sneaking towards him. He killed one of them with the iMod, but was then dominated.
That meant the run would be over if the same happened to Nearv - and he saved at least twice, if not three times until he was able to get out of sight of a chasing vampire and slip into the shadows.
Tens recovered at one point, but was dominated again instantly. Nearv then got a bit impatient waiting for him to recover again and moved up closer to be ready for action - resulting in him being spotted by Tanova when his stealth suddenly broke. From this screenshot, as the domination is finished you can see Tens is still under the influence, so Nearv needed to save once more or the run would be over.
He didn't save, but the run wasn't over either . Amazingly, in the split second required for the domination projectile to reach Nearv, Tens had come to his senses.
He immediately used a potion of invisibility, cast chaotic commands on himself and put the remaining vampires to the swordmace.
Moving on to the de'Arnise Hold, we made fairly heavy weather of ploughing through the initial hordes of trolls. With those out of the way though progress was smoother - a yuan-ti mage was given no chance to buff by a critical backstab, while Tens applied more spells than usual to help him melee an iron golem.
Downstairs, Nearv pulled TorGal away from his troll companions, but took a couple of nasty hits before he could disengage. Once skeletons were attacking him though, TorGal's days were numbered (as were his hours, minutes and seconds ).
After sorting out inventory and storing a few more items in our standard container in the Promenade, Tens decided to have a go at Mencar's gang. Nearv set down a few traps, before Tens tried out a sanctuary + blade barrier combination. That annoyed some of the gang and Smaeluv became a trap victim. Shortly afterwards Pooky was minced by the blades and the mage soon followed. We'd been trying to avoid damage to the thief to prevent him from running away, but that potential problem was solved by a first appearance from Kitthix - who threw in a successful web tangle.
The next destination intended was Umar Hills, but some bandits staged an ambush on the way. A bit of running round later they were cleared and the journey continued - straight into another ambush. Fed up with that Tens resorted to a first use of Holy Smite to take the mage down quickly.
Arriving at Umar, Tens realized he'd made a mistake earlier by reflexively agreeing to help out his local temple - the reward from the ranger stronghold quests would have been significantly more attractive. However, what's done was done and the quests in Umar village were soon complete. Near the old temple they came across a werewolf who was obviously up to no good. The werewolf looked somewhat scornfully at Tens, obviously thinking he would not have the melee punch to overcome his regeneration - but Nearv grinned to himself as he sneaked round behind and showed what happens when you get a critical backstab with a 6x multiplier.
Tens found he could reliably explode shadows with turn undead and soon cleared the entrance to the temple. More turning, combined with the odd summons and iMoD for the greater mummies inside, soon provided a route to a dragon. Nearv merrily placed a circle of traps around that, while Tens buffed himself up - rather expecting that to be a waste of time (and it was).
Nearv was preparing a sunray to light up the Shade Lord, but Tens got in first with the iMoD.
Finishing the session as we began, Nearv sneaked in to attack some rangers asking awkward questions about why we were carrying a body out of Valygar's cabin. He was already fairly low on HPs and the Flame Strike sent after him had a decent chance of killing him - but the 5% MR provided by the amulet taken from the Unseeing Eye was all the defense he needed.
Not to be outdone, Tens stood his ground while the ranger cast hold person at him. I think he would actually have had a decent chance for survival even if he'd failed his saving throw - but he didn't anyway.
Tens, cleric 12 / ranger 11, 120 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 316 kills (+195 in BG1)
Nearv, assassin 18, 83 HPs, 216 kills (+158 in BG1), 2 deaths
Blaggerd reckons he can try to deal with Sendai, Balthazar and the Ravager. It's a tall order but no dragons are involved thankfully. Continued from here.
Sendai's enclave is hidden away behind a powerful illusion. Blaggerd and his companions defeat two attempts at besting them and a drow commander is forced to drop his pretence and attack. He is swept aside and the whole illusion comes tumbling down. The entrance to Sendai's lair is now in plain sight but Imoen cannot disarm a trap outside it. She has the Cloak of Mirroring on though so trips it without taking any injury.
There are myconids aplenty inside and a steady stream of umber hulks and spiders make their way towards us. There is only one true threat though and five of us retreat from the confused vorpaller called Sarevok. We support him from a distance and he survives, as do we.
The next thing we remember is facing Ogremoch. Blaggerd thinks we have buffed sufficiently but when Neera drops dead it becomes clear that saving throws are important in this encounter. A couple of rounds of Greater Whirlwind are too much for Ogremoch and his stoneskins, allowing us to raise our dead party member and re-equip her.
Diaytha and her collective (vampire, hive mother, demon knight, cornugon...) manage to scare Sarevok and hold Wilson but they cannot capitalise on this and everybody survives. On our side, not theirs!
We continue on, and dismantle all of Sendai's statues. She's not happy about this and attacks.
We pile on the pressure and she is picking up wounds quickly, but still manages to cast Implosion. Blaggerd is held, so the usual thoughts about Planetar dispel, Imoen dispel, Imoen or Sarevok arrow of dispelling are considered.
Blaggerd really wasn't expecting a party member to use a Wilt. It clears out Sendai's summons and she teleports away in less than a round (Blaggerd was thinking a Harm > attack > death was imminent but fortunately not the case). He's back in the thick of it but has picked up a Malison - if Sendai chose that instead of Harm it was a poor choice on her part.
Weapons start to bounce off her protective buffs as she teleports to the top of the room so Imoen and Neera cast de-buffs in her direction and subsequent melee pressure breaks her resolve and she dies with only eight or more sentences uttered. Just die.
Another Pocket Plane challenge awaits us. Imoen and Sarevok know what awaits us and suggest a few changes.
Rasaad equips the Big Metal Unit, immune to backstab.
Sarevok equips Enkidu's Plate, immune to backstab. He uses the Gargoyle boots to Stoneskin.
Wilson is given Spirit Armour and Improved Invisibility.
Imoen and Neera both Stoneskin.
Blaggerd uses the Gargoyle boots to Stoneskin.
Then it is time to taunt Cyric, telling him that Blaggerd will be coming for him. Cyric won't turn up and his Favored get an unfavourable welcome.
Back to Amkethran where the monks attack, using Quivering Palm. We grab a key and use Mass Invisibility - Blaggerd recognising his party are at risk even if he is not. Then we make our way into Balthazar's retreat and summon a few minions before buffing. We send the minions ahead but their movement triggers automatic confrontation and we are placed facing Balthazar.
Our auras are clear and we have already used Hardiness so use Greater Whirlwind and focus our attacks on Balthazar. He survives one round but not a second, and then we are teleported to the Pocket Plane to talk to the Solar. We return so the remaining monks can retreat, with our Chain Contingencies firing at that point.
With Balthazar dead the final Pocket Plane challenge room is unlocked. We prepare, buff, and enter. After a round or two Blaggerd realises we raced in so fast the challenge has not triggered. He moves back and click we are off.
Four melee Greater Whirlwinds are active, but our casters do not think to move and some Bone Blades spawn nearby. Our casters move but the proximity is fortuitous and a Chain Contingency thins out the Bone Blades. We use a second set of Greater Whirlwind and a second Chain Contingency deals with some more Bone Blades.
Blaggerd isn't sure why the two casters have their Chain Contingencies activate so far apart in time as they are positioned quite close together. Never mind though, it was useful to have it happen.
With reduced Bone Blades and four attackers on the Ravager we can keep the pressure up, and a short while later the battle is ours.
Blaggerd is done for the day, other than suggesting to memorise more of the same Chain Contingencies for whatever faces us next (might help with the first Melissan encounter).
Journal of Rhiainfelt
Rather than return to Cloakwood immediately, I decided to visit the lighthouse area as I had bought some helms that protect from domination.
Though the battles there didn't go completely to plan, they were successful.
We followed that by heading northwards and fighting Shoal and her husband which also eventually ended in victory.
We then decided to take on the Section HQ which we are currently in the process of cleaning up though with difficulty as the enemies there are quite powerful.
The Crew vacuumed the Beregost Temple map, including using more +1 arrows on the vampiric wolves, before moving on to the Bandit Camp. The bandits outside were all shot down without trouble and Vito took Taurgosz's full plate and magical shield. Inside Tazok's tent, Venkt was tagged by a poisoned dart and failed to cast a spell - leaving the others with no real chance.
After resting to get Bhaal horror, the Crew opened up the Cloakwood, but before heading there they wanted to do the reputation quests left previously. In the process of doing that, they cleared a number of additional areas and picked up a fair amount of loot - for instance their high strength allowed them to carry 14 ankheg shells away from that area. That more than paid for one shell to be made into armor. They also got a decent cash uplift from dealing with Bassilus.
After helping Charleston Nib, the Crew turned on the Doomsayer in their first real melee contest. Against full plate, +1 shield and golden girdle the Doomsayer was up against it and failed to register a hit.
In the next area, Ardrouine was reassured some worgs were no threat. The sirines nearby were then tanked initially by Vito. The final sirine managed to charm him, but that did it no good.
Sil and her companions all had their invisibility attempts interrupted and failed to make any impression - their deaths gave the Crew level 6.
The golems in the cave were then quickly shot down.
On the way down to the Cloud Peaks, Borda successfully got mirrors up and those protected him just long enough to at least do a bit of damage with a magic missile.
There were no real challenges on those maps, but that left Firewine Bridge as the most southerly map not yet explored and they went there next. They used the charm ability of Algernon's Cloak for the first time there, in order to get Bentan's PfM scroll without losing reputation. Meilum was shot down before he could get near them, but Kahrk offered a stiffer test. Al had one dispelling arrow he'd looted somewhere, but he missed with that and it took a while to batter down Kahrk's defenses. By spreading spell damage around the Crew avoided any casualties, but took far more damage than any previous encounter in the run.
I thought about going into the Firewine Ruins immediately, but didn't fancy the traps and decided to go and get a bit more elemental protection first courtesy of the Helm of Defense. Vito, as the only one with decent charisma, went to talk to Shoal and managed to save against her kiss. Ogre Droth failed to cast a spell and the crew then shot Shoal - less to punish her misdeeds than to get the far greater XP than awarded for freeing her.
There were another group of sirines in the area and they again managed to charm Vito - but again it did them no good.
The Helm, added to Icingbrand, ring of fire resistance and boots of grounding pushed fire resistance to 110% and lightning resistance to 70% and the Crew returned to Firewine. They took turns to lead and absorb the trap damage, but by the time they got to the other end they were all tired, despite constitutions of 19, except Al (who had boosted his constitution with the tome from the pirate cave). Nevertheless they pressed on rather than go outside to rest and have to wade through loads more kobold commandos - and they managed to prevent Lendarn casting any spells.
Vito saved against a confusion from the ogre mage and it was finished off before it could complete anything else.
The remainder of Gullykin was then cleared, including hammering Molkar's party into the ground.
The only area south of Beregost not yet cleared was Ulcaster and they did that next. There are a couple of challenging encounters there if SCS is installed, but in the unmodded game there's no real threat and the Wolf of Ulcaster was soon disposed of.
Their reputation is back up to 18 now, but maximising that will depend on clearing the Cloakwood Mine - which will be the next target.
A combination of my holiday being over and getting up quite a bit later than usual (possibly as an unconscious protest at my holiday being over ) meant I didn't manage my usual early morning mage session, but I managed to sneak one in after supper.
At the Bandit Camp I memorized lots of sleeps for the basic bandits. Taurgosz rushing out was dealt with by invisibility, web, malison and skull traps.
Inside the tent I decided a couple of webs would be enough without bothering with blinding opponents - and none of them moved.
Resting provided me slow poison as a Bhaal power. I normally prefer horror for solo characters, but the mage has much better disabling options for enemies anyway.
I skipped invisibly through the Cloakwood before using grease and web to disable Drasus & co.
After sneaking downstairs, 3 skull traps from out of sight proved too much for Davaeorn and his battle horrors.
In the City I spent a while learning new spells before undertaking the poison quest. Lothander failed to make his getaway after his normal speedy exit was hugely delayed by a grease field.
Even the mighty Larze was reduced to a crawl and failed to get anywhere near me even after the field itself disappeared.
Marek saw me disappear before his eyes before being webbed from out of sight.
With only a few minutes left in the session I just did a bit of inventory sorting and selling before saving.
Mage L9, 51 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 241 kills
Blaggerd steps out onto the Throne of Bhaal, his five companions right behind him. Continued from here.
We ease into combat with Melissan, managing to injure her despite saving special abilities for later. This could prove to be foolhardy but two Chain Contingencies lower her resistance and four Wiltings send her reeling for extra essence.
Rasaad faces his sternest test at this point. He fails...
The first essence pool sees Blaggerd naturally immune to level-drain, Sarevok uses the Runehammer +5 and Rasaad uses the Spectral Brand +5. Wilson observes as the rest of us pick the enemies apart.
Our buffs are mostly intact for a second encounter with Melissan but Imoen casts another Chain Contingency before we start. Once more we save our special abilities, having used none so far. It goes well, very well indeed even if Rasaad has forgotten to switch back to fists.
Imoen orders Sarevok to change his helmet (Rock) and armour (white dragon scale). Next she bids Blaggerd to change his helmet (Gift of peace), shield (Darksteel). 50% scrolls of protection vs cold take these two characters to 100%+ cold resistance and they melee the second essence pool guardians alongside a Planetar. Rasaad joins Imoen and Neera in ranged attack, making the most of the big metal rod and pulse ammunition although Sarevok is Cromming trolls and Waving Salamanders to take the lions share of kills.
Neera selects the same Chain Contingency as Imoen previously took and we do a few more buffs for the third pool. Melissan makes a better start and we reluctantly use Whirlwinds. It doesn't go well and Melissan teleports to the other side of the essence flow. Melissan casts Time Stop and kills Sarevok. As the Time Stop ends Melissan unleases an area damage injuring Blaggerd and Wilson alongside her own minions but killing Rasaad.
Wilson is being level-drained too, and it is all kicking off. Blaggerd takes so much damage in melee he has to run and switch to the Firetooth +5 crossbow. He has thrown a Rod of Resurrection to Neera since she is the only party member without a +4 weapon. Neera grabs the Rod and revives Sarevok, but her Stoneskin is removed and she takes a flamestrike-effect for half damage. Wilson had insufficient movement speed to escape his tormentors and has perished so we are still two party members down.
Sarevok has no armour but has jumped back into melee, while Imoen and Blaggerd shoot from distance - both trying to keep away from other attackers chasing them. Blaggerd is pouring blood heavily so it is looking bleak. Imoen has a Spell Trigger memorised so uses that at some point.
Neera raises Rasaad and he leaps into melee. He makes a difference for the brief time he is present then slumps dead a second time.
Melissan is badly wounded by our efforts though, and we just hold on long enough for her to retreat again. There is a nabassu in our way so Sarevok melees it as Blaggerd Imoen and Neera shoot.
Neera uses some Raise Dead scrolls to keep Rod of Resurrection charges to a minimum (1x10 unused, 1x6 left so plenty but we intend to keep as many charges available as possible).
Blaggerd summons a Fallen Deva as we gulp healing potions. Then we buff again and use a skeleton warrior to draw out a few enemies from the third essence pool. A succubus arrives, followed by a Fallen Solar. That's our target so we ignore the succubus and go for broke - skeleton first hoping the Fallen Solar targets that with it's vorpal attacks.
We get the solar but Wilson has been dominated. He's reasonably safe to ignore so we kill the succubus, then one marilith, then go for a tag-attack on the Alu-fiend and remaining marilith. Neera has taken some poison so the Fallen Deva's last favour is to stop that.
We wait for the Fallen Deva to disappear but it seems intent on hanging around, so we kill it to raise a new Planetar. We buff for a final confrontation with Melissan and that includes Hardiness and a wait so we can use Greater Whirlwinds as soon as combat starts.
Melissan is hard-pressed to stop us although our attempts to Wilt her fail - so the lowering of her magic resistance via Pierce Magic within Chain Contingency must have significantly helped us earlier. We can use some magic reduction but our four attackers plus a Planetar will get there first and that is what happens.
Party inventory a few seconds before Melissan concedes. & NPC epilogues (no mention of Rasaad quietly contemplating in his Big Metal Unit).
Back to an early-morning start as I made progress through the City. I didn't actually need to investigate the ship moored in the harbour, but did it anyway - and a first use of darts of stunning saw immediate problems for Desreta.
Nearly all the encounters went pretty much according to plan. I did accidentally kill Ragefast before talking to Ramazith, meaning he hopped up to the top of his tower. However, a web from behind one of the bookcases set him up for the kill.
At the Iron Throne Alai finally succumbed to the 7th attempt to blind him (his ring of free action means he's more difficult to disable than the others). Webs, MMM, skull traps and chaos then left only Gardush alive - and he could be run round without using any resources.
The session closed after reporting to Duke Eltan and being transported back to Candlekeep.
Mage L9, 51 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 256 kills
In the first Cloakwood area, the most likely threat was Seniyad successfully completing a call lightning spell - but that was never probable.
In the second area, Vito used the ring of free action to trip the web traps. The phase spiders don't attack immediately after teleporting, so as long as you're not surprised it's easy enough to shoot them up without allowing them any attacks (being poisoned by them would be dangerous as the party currently has no form of allowed curing for poison). Vito nipped in and out of the nest to draw Centeol's crew out in manageable chunks and allow Al to grab Spiders' Bane.
In the third area the Shadow Druids failed to last long enough to complete a spell. Amarande probably would have done, but his attempted spell was interrupted by the damage.
In the fourth area the hamadryad managed one charm attempt - which failed. I didn't fancy fighting wyverns in the fairly close quarters of the cave, so they were pulled outside to be shot.
In the fifth area Vito showed himself to Drasus - pulling him back into massed fire.
A first use of Bhaal horror affected both Rezdan and Genthore. Realizing the problem, Kysus showed himself - and immediately died.
Inside the mine the Crew continued to try and divide and conquer where possible and hammer any mages hard where not.
On the bottom level a pair of battle horrors were pulled back and slaughtered. Vito then tanked Davaeorn's lightning bolt and fireball before the others set a trap for his final dimension door ...
Talking to the slave outside the mine took reputation to 20, but Vito's charisma was only 19 so items still looked a bit expensive for my taste . However, the route to Baldur's Gate was now open and they knew where to find a Helm of Glory. Jardak is a decent fighter, but not up to dealing with 6 decent fighters.
Talking of decent fighters I only realized on arrival in the City that the Crew had got the XP for level 7 at some point in the Cloakwood Mine. They duly levelled up before going on a shopping spree.
Back in the City I got a bit lazy after looking at their tougher status and wasn't so careful about spreading them out against mages. That led to 4 of them being affected by a single horror in Sorcerous Sundries. They still won the battle comfortably enough, but that acted as a reminder not to take chances and risk spoiling my record of no deaths to date.
After Larze found even his melee power insufficient against a massed attack, Marek was another to fail to complete a spell.
Continuing this morning, the Crew noticed a mage rushing round the City like a blue-arsed fly, but they were working through encounters in a much more comprehensive way. However, I'd already forgotten the warning yesterday about being careful and all of the Crew piled in to the house with the ogre magi immediately after loading the game. It would have been far safer for only 1 to go in as, when they tried to retreat from a horror spell, they got stuck in the doorway. It was pretty lucky that both Vito and Al remained under control after the horror and a follow-up confusion - if everyone had lost control there would almost certainly have been casualties. However, Vito did good work with 5 darts of stunning to put two of the ogre magi out of action, while Al poisoned at least another 2 with arrows of biting. It was still touch and go whether everyone would survive, but they just made it.
The fight at the Helm & Cloak could have been similarly problematic, but this time I did plan for it. Vito successfully dragged Gretek into the back room without allowing him close enough to talk - allowing everyone else to get free opening attacks on the other enemies. Only seconds later everyone else was dead and the Crew went to rescue Gorpel Hind from Gretek.
There was no hint of trouble in any of the remaining City encounters. At the Iron Throne they took a cautious approach by using fireballs for the first time to soften up the opponents - four of the Crew now had Necklaces, while the others threw in potions. Two of the casters survived that, but neither completed a spell thereafter.
After reporting to Duke Eltan, the Crew have also just arrived back at Candlekeep.
Journal of Rhiainfelt
Upon taking on the Section HQ we were highly successful and emerged victorious.
They were very well equipped which means that we now have a lot of loot to sell: Dozens of suits of full plate mail; dozens of +1 swords; etc. etc. However, very little to improve our own equipment. However, by selling it, we will be able to stock up on wands. EDIT
We only had enough gold for one wand, a wand of monster summoning with 200 charges, probably the last time I'll have enough gold to buy one of those. We only have 5 charges each on the wands of fire, so hope that our extravagance in buying it doesn't rebound on us.
@Grond0 , I noticed much earlier on, when discussing BGI, you talk about killing Elminster (multiple times). I can’t for the life of me figure out how to do this. Any advice?
Today, Dozier the barbarian died in the sewers beneath Athkatla, a freaking goblin cast “hold person” and I thought rage was up but I was wrong.
@klorox I think you need to kill him pretty quickly to prevent him casting a cowkill spell and disappearing. I rarely attack him, but I have noted his vulnerability to thief traps - I think 7 of those have a pretty high chance of finishing him off. Set those out of his sight, show yourself to prompt him to walk towards them and fire missiles at him ...
Standard magic attacks won't get through his magic resistance, but it should be possible to surround him invisibly and launch a melee assault - I've not tried that though and am not sure how easy it is to hit him.
@klorox I think you need to kill him pretty quickly to prevent him casting a cowkill spell and disappearing. I rarely attack him, but I have noted his vulnerability to thief traps - I think 7 of those have a pretty high chance of finishing him off. Set those out of his sight, show yourself to prompt him to walk towards them and fire missiles at him ...
Standard magic attacks won't get through his magic resistance, but it should be possible to surround him invisibly and launch a melee assault - I've not tried that though and am not sure how easy it is to hit him.
@klorox I think you need to kill him pretty quickly to prevent him casting a cowkill spell and disappearing. I rarely attack him, but I have noted his vulnerability to thief traps - I think 7 of those have a pretty high chance of finishing him off. Set those out of his sight, show yourself to prompt him to walk towards them and fire missiles at him ...
Standard magic attacks won't get through his magic resistance, but it should be possible to surround him invisibly and launch a melee assault - I've not tried that though and am not sure how easy it is to hit him.
Last question: how do you take out Drizzt in BGI so easily?
@Klorox now I do have lots of experience in killing Drizzt . With a party he's easy as you can just kite him round while shooting him. That's possible solo as well and I have quite often in the past allowed the gnolls to damage him a bit and then kited him. With a level 1 character that's pretty painful though as the number of critical hits required can be high and it's not that easy to get enough distance to shoot him safely. You also need to beware of his two charm spells and, potentially, of entangle. With though a level 8 fighter, buffed up, equipped with boots of speed and using arrows of piercing, killing him directly yourself is pretty quick and easy .
With a low-level character the risk free way to kill him is to approach cautiously his position to activate one or more gnolls without getting into sight of Drizzt. You may find the first gnoll you spot will attack you, not Drizzt, and require you to kill them - but any subsequent gnolls will go straight after the drow. If you're only interested in his equipment you can circle right round Drizzt, activating all the gnolls. It then only takes them a few minutes to kill him, though typically Drizzt will partially activate in the process and kill one of them.
If you want to get his XP with a low-level character, you're better off just activating one or two gnolls. It is possible to activate a lot more, but that increases the chances of them getting the kill. With a single gnoll I reckon it is safe to let it attack for about 20 minutes (at 60 fps), letting the game run in the background while I do something else. If the gnoll has broken its weapon then just let it continue attacking until Drizzt is unconscious and then shoot him dead. If the gnoll has not broken its weapon then retreat off the map to reset the combat - keep doing that until a weapon does break. I used to specifically monitor how much damage he took (from memory I think he has 92 HPs and may cast cure medium wounds as well), but these days I tend not to bother with that and just use rough timings.
In Candlekeep I skipped straight upstairs to surrender myself for transport to the catacombs. There, MGoI protected against traps while the tombs were being knocked open. I just sneaked past the dopplegangers, but couldn't resist giving Prat's gang the web treatment. The skeleton summoned for those then tanked the basilisks on the way out.
Back in Baldur's Gate I thought I would once more make more use of a grease field - this time that prevented Slythe from getting to grips with me as he was shot down with MMMs. I have tried grease at the palace before and found it didn't work well - largely because when the dopplegangers change they remove any status effects. This time I tried it again, but added teleport field into the mixture. A chaos immediately after the dopplegangers changed helped to ensure they could not consistently target the dukes and a follow-up malison pretty much ensured they would get greased to prevent them moving back quickly after being teleported (and made them more vulnerable to darts of stunning).
That all worked fairly well and the dukes still had decent HPs in hand when the last of the dopplegangers fell.
Apart from tripping one of the lightning traps (and hastily gulping an absorption potion) there was no trouble in the maze. The Undercity party joined the "we hate grease and maze" list on the way to the temple. I moved forward invisibly there to trigger Sarevok's dialogue and persuade Semaj to teleport out. I was hoping that 3 skull traps from out of sight would kill him, but it didn't quite. I had endless fire balls available, but was determined to kill him with skull traps and (unfortunately) found I had a scroll of that in my bag. The problem with those is that the scrolls are bugged. Rather than the sight range you get with the spell itself, the range is only about half of that - meaning I would be in sight well before the spell cast. I could of course have used buffs to protect myself, but I hadn't been intending to do that in the temple and just hoped that I would beat Semaj to the draw. He only had 8 HPs left, so I expected the skull trap to kill him. As it happened though, I was dominated and the skull trap didn't even kill him anyway .
Last question: how do you take out Drizzt in BGI so easily?
I don't know if it is still possible but you used to be able to lure him to the lakeside with summons and then use ranged weapons from the other side of the lake. It took a long time, but you didn't get injured at all.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if that tactic is no longer possible. Devs always seemed to be trying to eliminate tactics that had an unwanted effect as far as they were concerned. Since I usually play good characters, I'm not in the habit of even trying to kill him, so I haven't tested it for years.
Welcome back to the fora by the way. Your contributions have been missed.
Comments
Dire ran with 1hp left and Croppy stepped in. He took a hit, gulped a potion. Dire returned with his bow, and Croppy took another hit. He gulped another potion and ran but an acidic spit shot after him and he tried to gulp again with no success.
(There followed a discussion about suitable levels and armour for doing the ankhegs but Croppy lies dead by his principles and would have it no other way... other than being a darned sight more lucky)
Tens (male half-elf cleric/ranger, Grond0); Nearv (male dwarf assassin, Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1110591/#Comment_1110591
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1110957/#Comment_1110957
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1111665/#Comment_1111665
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1111826/#Comment_1111826
After almost constantly pushing boundaries in the run to date, today's session saw generally much more straight-forward progress. Much of the reason for that was owing to the initial target being the Ring of Gaxx. Scrolls of PfU were used to deal with the City Gates lich and the Elemental Lich. However, when we moved on to the Shade Lich it was able to spot Nearv coming - due to a MP glitch meaning that moving between areas can destroy buffs. Things looked as though they could be painful when the lich chased after Nearv and threw up a time stop. However, it failed to do much with that and Tens was able to shoot it down. Fresh scrolls were applied before moving on to Kangaxx. The only weapon we had that could hit the demi-lich was Daystar being used non-proficiently by Nearv - but that was more than enough.
Moving on to Mae'Var's tasks, Tens led the way to Rayic's house. With the benefit of regeneration he didn't bother buffing for the mephits on the ground floor - they did plenty of elemental damage, but not enough to really worry him. The golems were actually more troublesome, as only Nearv could damage them. However, skeleton warriors provided enough distraction for Nearv to kill the first and Tens put his plate on to tank the second. Upstairs, Rayic was unable to deal with skeletons. In the guild house itself the thieves made little impression on Tens (once more dressed in plate). Downstairs, Mae'Var succumbed to a backstab. The cleric did have the opportunity to cast a couple of spells, but didn't make much use of them.
Another occasion to highlight Tens' lack of a +2 weapon was the appearance of Del and her acolytes in search of Sansuki. Tens could hit the lesser vampires, but not Del. However, rather oddly, Del and the other vampire both immediately took bat form and ran away when their companion was killed.
Looking for a weapon upgrade, the next task was to run through Aran Linvail's tasks and then head for the Graveyard in search of the Mace of Disruption (and the Staff Mace). An orog ambush on the way triggered with Nearv visible, so he ran the enemies around at one end of the map, while Tens summoned a couple of skeletons at the other - greater command and hold person then made the battle easy. At the Graveyard, the tombs were cleared before heading underground. Pai'Na and her spiders were potentially pretty dangerous to Nearv, but by this time Tens had a saving throw against poison of 1 and was happy to provide a focus of attention for them. His greater command put plenty of spiders out of action anyway and, though Pai'Na saved against that, she was mown down within a few seconds.
Tens made use of chaotic commands in the vampire HQ to protect himself against domination and played the standard game of providing a target for opponents while Nearv sneaked round behind them for a backstab. One of those didn't quite finish off Tanova, but Tens had also sneaked up on her and was able to complete the job before she buffed. The intention for the fight downstairs was for Tens to gather up the enemies before Nearv came in and activated a Daystar sunray. However, his stealth broke prematurely and he was dominated before the sunray burst. Possibly because that meant that a 'friend' had attacked them, the enemies continued to attack Nearv despite the domination and Tens was unable to save him. After using the Rod of Resurrection, it was time to go back upstairs and use the MoD to destroy Lassal. Bodhi was then rapidly sent on her way with the help of another successful backstab.
Thinking that it would be nice to further improve his mace, the final action saw Neb losing his head before any child spirits could intervene. The illithium made a nice coating for the iMoD.
Tens, cleric 11 / ranger 109, 118 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 234 kills (+195 in BG1)
Nearv, assassin 16, 86 HPs (incl. 7 from ioun stone), 154 kills (+158 in BG1), 2 deaths
The Forest of Mir is on the way to the Marching Mountains. A Master Wraith has sufficient resources, i.e. a vampiric wraith, to level-drain Wilson and forces him to retreat. By this time we have de-buffed the Master Wraith and are setting about him with a vengeance.
On our arrival there we are attacked by Fire Giants and Burning Men, and kill a small group of Bhaalspawn too. Then we move inside the Fire Giant temple and make relatively smooth progress (compared to my usual struggle inside). Sarevok has been using the Wave Halberd against elementals and Crom Faeyr against trolls. He concludes the action by using the Wave halberd to one-shot Imix.
From there we travel to the Siege Camp and our first attack brutally injures Yaga Shura to a point where he most certainly should expire. He finds a way to leave and we use Mass Invisibility to both hide and buff slightly for his return. We move slightly and find him again, from there Blaggerd takes a moment or two longer to activate Greater Whirlwind than his companions. He misses his target once but others do not and Yaga Shura is dead.
Party equipment:
Blaggerd briefly off-handed the Axe of Unyielding +5 instead of Belm +2. He has now switched to Yaga Shura's shield.
Sarevok has equipped Yaga Shura's armour and a strength girdle.
Rasaad has given Sarevok his previous girdle and equipped a better one from the Marching Mountains temple.
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1111901/#Comment_1111901
I cleared the rest of the ghasts from the Tower and gave Riggilo a lock of hair before providing him with a mercy killing as he crawled towards me. The Greenstone Amulet provided access to the tome there before I ventured out on to the roof to kill a number of basilisks.
At the Nashkel Mine I stayed invisible most of the way to find Mulahey. He unwisely believed my story of being there on behalf of Tazok, after suffering a first skull trap from the shadows, and died to a second of those. I successfully learnt web there and made immediate use of that on the Amazons. Nimbul also got stuck and provided me the opportunity to summon a familiar.
Back in Beregost I killed some spiders and webbed Silke to get me to the level cap. Tranzig was held by a web long enough to lose morale and he was finished off as he tried to run.
At the FAI, I returned Landrin's things and picked up the pantaloons. Rather than go on to the Bandit Camp though, I went to visit the Lighthouse area. More webs there were a precursor to malison and skull traps for the sirines. Inside the cave, I just ran the golems round rather than resorting to invisible blocking with the familiar. One of the golems took advantage of that by hiding in a wall to get an attack in, but that was their lot.
I've just arrived at the Bandit Camp ready for next time.
Mage L9, 51 HPs, 177 kills
Last run
The Wrecking Crew were the first of my single-class parties. Although their early adventures were in an unmodded game, for quite a while their attempts have been in an SCS installation (and latterly with LoB as well). That's caused them problems from several perspectives - including the greater difficulty of breaking down mage defenses and the SCS tendency to pick on the weakest character (often causing chunkings, which I count as ending a run). As a result they've tended to struggle around the end of BG1 and early BG2 when saving throws are still pretty vulnerable and my lack of buffing is most noticeable.
This time I thought I'd give them another run out in an unmodded installation. Their aim will be to do a completionist run. In the unlikely event they get far enough, that will include descending into Watcher's Keep as it's a long time since I did that.
The first significant source of XP was the sirines in Beregost temple - using Algernon's blood-spattered cloak to tempt them outside for disposal. Only one of the sirines lasted long enough to try a charm - and Baby Face saved against that. There was more easy XP from following Korax round at the basilisk area and they all picked up a couple of quick levels doing that. While Korax was still on their side they destroyed Kirian's party before clearing the remainder of the area.
Kirian & co had provided some sort of armor for everyone, but still generally substandard. The 3 Flaming Fist south of Beregost all had plate mail though to give much better protection.
They ticked off the area north of Beregost, while picking up the belt of piercing. Then it was back to High Hedge where the Crew picked up their 4th level while clearing the exterior area. A bit of bonus XP came from shooting the golems with the +1 arrows taken from Baerin.
With the route to the FAI established, the Crew returned south to open up the road to Nashkel. Before going there though they nipped over to the Lake area. With a full party I decided to kite Drizzt rather than just rely on the gnolls. The main potential problem doing that is if he charms someone, so the character being targeted by charms ran out of sight while the spell was casting and was replaced by another - both attempted charms failed anyway though and Drizzt failed to get an attack in while the criticals slowly mounted. Mad Dog ran out of the throwing axes bought in Candlekeep during the fight against Drizzt and acted as the target while clearing the rest of the area.
Looking to complete their nefarious activities for the moment, the Crew returned north. Tenya got her bowl back, though she was able to proclaim her success directly to her god a bit sooner than she might have wanted. Then it was on to Ulgoth's Beard to shoot Dushai down - reducing reputation to 3.
Looking to restore reputation a bit before venturing into civilized areas, they went in search of Arabelle. While there, they cleared the rest of that area - including picking up a +1 two-handed sword for Al. Getting a lift with Brage then saw them arrive in Nashkel with a safe reputation of 5. The ankheg armor found there meant everyone could dress in plate mail or better. Al also learnt LMD while resting.
Greywolf provided a sword upgrade at the Nashkel Mine area and the Crew decided to do the mine as well while clearing the area. They rested up for quite a while in Mulahey's cave to cure all the trap damage taken while fully exploring the mine, then attacked the cleric. He opened his mouth to shout for help - but failed to utter a word after being hit by an impressive 3 critical hits in a row from the Crew's opening salvo.
Reporting in to the mayor was enough for the Crew to push on to level 5. Before resting though Al led the way back to Beregost to talk to Firebead and Mr Colquetle - raising reputation to 10 so that he learnt CLW. As soon as that was done he got caught stealing to push it back to 9 again.
Nimbul was shot down before the Crew went back to the rear exit to the mine and cleared that area - including the amazons, who failed to complete any spells. At least they started a couple though - unlike Nimbul and Tranzig. He did though leave a clue to the location of the Bandit Camp and that will be the next destination after a trouble-free first session.
Vito - L5, 55 HPs, 84 kills, 0 deaths, *** scimitar / ** darts
Baby Face - L5, 64 HPs, 77 kills, 0 deaths, *** long sword / ** crossbow
Mad Dog - L5, 70 HPs, 51 kills, 0 deaths, *** axe / ** dual wielding
Carlo - L5, 56 HPs, 100 kills, 0 deaths, *** flail / ** sling
Bugsy - L5, 69 HPs, 84 kills, 0 deaths, *** hammer / ** shortbow
Al (PC) - L5, 68 HPs, 111 kills, *** 2-handed sword / ** longbow
After killing Yaga Shura it becomes clear that a second Pocket Plane challenge room is available. Blaggerd and his party buff and call forth a Planetar before entering the room. Inside they find another Blaggerd. He might be Evil Blaggerd, or More Evil Blaggerd. Or Less Evil Blaggerd. Regardless, he's a dead Blaggerd. We are bid by Melissan to head to Amkethran via the Oasis. This is was guarded by Jamis Tombelthen and his army. We exit the area somewhat bloodied (not us Bhaalspawn though think Blaggerd and Imoen we don't want to bleed when these other four can). If we ever meet Zaranda Rhindaun there will be a regicide the likes of which have not seen since the City of Caverns...
Actually he's very scared. Draconis has a good record against his patron. Rather too good.
He checks his casters have their contingencies, and have summoned a few skeleton warriors. Then he tells everyone to stand their ground while he goes to parley with Draconis. As expected, it ends poorly and Draconis unloads spells onto him. Blaggerd is unaffected by the physical attacks from Draconis and his invisible stalkers but the spell effects are working. Oops - Blaggerd realises the Cloak of Mirroring would be a good idea but too late now.
After trading a few blows Blaggerd gets Draconis badly wounded and retreats to switch to a ranged weapon. A few shots later and Draconis reveals his true form and blisters Blaggerd with acidic brown dragon breath. Yeuch.
Blaggerd gulps a potions and runs towards the party. He runs to their right and behind them but Draconis goes invisible just as they sight him.
The party scatters, and Draconis re-appears. Blaggerd sees the Chain Contingencies have not happened so maybe they are wasted. Sarevok, Rasaad and Wilson have used Greater Whirlwind and are closing in so Blaggerd shouts for Imoen and Neera to use their Spell Sequencers.
Then the Chain Contingencies kick in (2x Pierce Shield and 4x Wilt). It may have only been a few seconds but it felt like an eternity. Which it is, for Draconis as 244 spell damage overwhelms him.
Corearcher - elven archer, protagonist (corey_russell)
Menty - gnomish bounty hunter (Gate70)
Scurvy - human abjurer (Grond0)
So as Trio 18 bit the dust early in the session, we rolled another group. This group is a bit squishy, and Corearcher didn't get a lot of chances to actually do "archer" business, as he often had to tank since his party members weren't up to task.
Here is Corearcher's stats:
and here are his group mates:
We tried out the basilisks early - this went well, since Scurvy was able to protect everyone with PfP. As for Kirian's party, a triple stinking cloud insured that ranged attacks would carry the day - hardly in doubt with an archer plinking away.
Menty suggested Ankhegs, but Corearcher thought was dubious, as no one can even wear any armor better than leather. Instead, Corearcher suggested sirines, hoping his natural elven charm resistance would come in handy. So they went to the pirate cave area.
For the first group, stinking clouds proved effective. Corearcher used a potion of clarity on the 2nd group of sirines. For the golems, Menty and Scurvy ran around the golems while Corearcher took out the golems with +1 arrows. This worked, though we took plenty of damage.
We tried stinking cloud on the sirines just south of Candlekeep, but this was not anywhere near as effective, as two sirines maneuvered around the clouds. Corearcher decided to see just how well his natural charm would keep him safe - his charm resistance saved him every time! Corearcher did take plenty of damage from the Sirine arrows, but antidotes and potions of healing was able to keep Corearcher intact.
Corearcher took his team to the carnival to rest and heal themselves up - we ended our session here.
After disposing of the greeting party within Abazigal's lair we are faced with four pools each containing a tunnel. When we find one of the tunnels is short enough to swim through we emerge to be confronted by Frost Salamanders. Blaggerd starts to cast a protective buff onto Sarevok who switches to the Wave halberd. It's a veritable slaughter. We've been doing so well though many many sessions. Hey! Bondari! NO! Bondari has returned to us waving some bronze pantalettes. Sometimes you just don't ask questions, and this is one of those times. Really, don't ask.
We continue our search for a scroll of reversal. It's not too challenging to pick one up but on our way out of that chamber we all race away with our boots of speed and poor Wilson plods along behind us (not certain but I remember him being faster pre v2.5). Although we have cleared the area more enemies turn up and set his fur alight. Blaggerd throws him a potion of invisibility then remembers Wilson can only use healing potions. Wilson gulps one of those and makes a slow run for it but is too slow. This leads to another Planetar revival once we get to safety.
Blaggerd decides to return to Amkethran where Kerrick forges a Big Metal Unit for us together with a weapon and ammunition. Blaggerd has to confirm that Wilson can use neither then hands them to Rasaad although Sarevok could be a candidate for ranged weaponry. The scroll of reversal is used to free a guardian dragon and we enter the chamber where Abazigal is tucked away. Sarevok Waves away all the Frost Salamanders inside then we buff. Helmets, a shield and additional buffs to protect each of us against electricity are used. Neera and Imoen add Chain Contingencies out of sight then a Planetar and the rest of us converge on Abazigal who is actually a humanoid. We each use our Whirlwind, saving Greater Whirlwinds in case we need them and he quickly starts to bleed all over the floor. Blaggerd orders us to stand back and shoot while the Planetar remains.
It's a good call and Abazigal does the same as Draconis, erupting into a huge dragon form. We all use Hardiness followed by Greater Whirlwind as Imoen and Neera move in to support us. Sarevok takes some initial damage then Abazigal attacks Rasaad. The monk stands firm for a second or two then turns to run. We're doing heavy damage so think we'll be OK with some Spell Sequencers cast but then Chain Contingency wipes out the remainder of Abazigal's resolve.
Tens (male half-elf cleric/ranger, Grond0); Nearv (male dwarf assassin, Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1110591/#Comment_1110591
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1110957/#Comment_1110957
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1111665/#Comment_1111665
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1111826/#Comment_1111826
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1112026/#Comment_1112026
After a slightly saner session last time, we were keen to get back to normal today - and once again rely on the good will of Lady Luck to see us through.
The first action was tame enough, when we went to expose some kidnappers and recover the silver pantaloons. Camitis is quite tough and survived 2 backstabs from Nearv before eventually going down. However, when we went in search of a relic for the Lathander temple, trouble struck with a vengeance. Tens was searching for a contact in the Slums and didn't notice, until it was too late to hide, Tanova and a couple of other vampires sneaking towards him. He killed one of them with the iMod, but was then dominated. That meant the run would be over if the same happened to Nearv - and he saved at least twice, if not three times until he was able to get out of sight of a chasing vampire and slip into the shadows. Tens recovered at one point, but was dominated again instantly. Nearv then got a bit impatient waiting for him to recover again and moved up closer to be ready for action - resulting in him being spotted by Tanova when his stealth suddenly broke. From this screenshot, as the domination is finished you can see Tens is still under the influence, so Nearv needed to save once more or the run would be over. He didn't save, but the run wasn't over either . Amazingly, in the split second required for the domination projectile to reach Nearv, Tens had come to his senses. He immediately used a potion of invisibility, cast chaotic commands on himself and put the remaining vampires to the swordmace.
Moving on to the de'Arnise Hold, we made fairly heavy weather of ploughing through the initial hordes of trolls. With those out of the way though progress was smoother - a yuan-ti mage was given no chance to buff by a critical backstab, while Tens applied more spells than usual to help him melee an iron golem. Downstairs, Nearv pulled TorGal away from his troll companions, but took a couple of nasty hits before he could disengage. Once skeletons were attacking him though, TorGal's days were numbered (as were his hours, minutes and seconds ).
After sorting out inventory and storing a few more items in our standard container in the Promenade, Tens decided to have a go at Mencar's gang. Nearv set down a few traps, before Tens tried out a sanctuary + blade barrier combination. That annoyed some of the gang and Smaeluv became a trap victim. Shortly afterwards Pooky was minced by the blades and the mage soon followed. We'd been trying to avoid damage to the thief to prevent him from running away, but that potential problem was solved by a first appearance from Kitthix - who threw in a successful web tangle.
The next destination intended was Umar Hills, but some bandits staged an ambush on the way. A bit of running round later they were cleared and the journey continued - straight into another ambush. Fed up with that Tens resorted to a first use of Holy Smite to take the mage down quickly.
Arriving at Umar, Tens realized he'd made a mistake earlier by reflexively agreeing to help out his local temple - the reward from the ranger stronghold quests would have been significantly more attractive. However, what's done was done and the quests in Umar village were soon complete. Near the old temple they came across a werewolf who was obviously up to no good. The werewolf looked somewhat scornfully at Tens, obviously thinking he would not have the melee punch to overcome his regeneration - but Nearv grinned to himself as he sneaked round behind and showed what happens when you get a critical backstab with a 6x multiplier. Tens found he could reliably explode shadows with turn undead and soon cleared the entrance to the temple. More turning, combined with the odd summons and iMoD for the greater mummies inside, soon provided a route to a dragon. Nearv merrily placed a circle of traps around that, while Tens buffed himself up - rather expecting that to be a waste of time (and it was). Nearv was preparing a sunray to light up the Shade Lord, but Tens got in first with the iMoD.
Finishing the session as we began, Nearv sneaked in to attack some rangers asking awkward questions about why we were carrying a body out of Valygar's cabin. He was already fairly low on HPs and the Flame Strike sent after him had a decent chance of killing him - but the 5% MR provided by the amulet taken from the Unseeing Eye was all the defense he needed. Not to be outdone, Tens stood his ground while the ranger cast hold person at him. I think he would actually have had a decent chance for survival even if he'd failed his saving throw - but he didn't anyway.
Tens, cleric 12 / ranger 11, 120 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 316 kills (+195 in BG1)
Nearv, assassin 18, 83 HPs, 216 kills (+158 in BG1), 2 deaths
Sendai's enclave is hidden away behind a powerful illusion. Blaggerd and his companions defeat two attempts at besting them and a drow commander is forced to drop his pretence and attack. He is swept aside and the whole illusion comes tumbling down. The entrance to Sendai's lair is now in plain sight but Imoen cannot disarm a trap outside it. She has the Cloak of Mirroring on though so trips it without taking any injury.
There are myconids aplenty inside and a steady stream of umber hulks and spiders make their way towards us. There is only one true threat though and five of us retreat from the confused vorpaller called Sarevok. We support him from a distance and he survives, as do we. The next thing we remember is facing Ogremoch. Blaggerd thinks we have buffed sufficiently but when Neera drops dead it becomes clear that saving throws are important in this encounter. A couple of rounds of Greater Whirlwind are too much for Ogremoch and his stoneskins, allowing us to raise our dead party member and re-equip her. Diaytha and her collective (vampire, hive mother, demon knight, cornugon...) manage to scare Sarevok and hold Wilson but they cannot capitalise on this and everybody survives. On our side, not theirs! We continue on, and dismantle all of Sendai's statues. She's not happy about this and attacks. We pile on the pressure and she is picking up wounds quickly, but still manages to cast Implosion. Blaggerd is held, so the usual thoughts about Planetar dispel, Imoen dispel, Imoen or Sarevok arrow of dispelling are considered. Blaggerd really wasn't expecting a party member to use a Wilt. It clears out Sendai's summons and she teleports away in less than a round (Blaggerd was thinking a Harm > attack > death was imminent but fortunately not the case). He's back in the thick of it but has picked up a Malison - if Sendai chose that instead of Harm it was a poor choice on her part. Weapons start to bounce off her protective buffs as she teleports to the top of the room so Imoen and Neera cast de-buffs in her direction and subsequent melee pressure breaks her resolve and she dies with only eight or more sentences uttered. Just die. Another Pocket Plane challenge awaits us. Imoen and Sarevok know what awaits us and suggest a few changes.
Rasaad equips the Big Metal Unit, immune to backstab.
Sarevok equips Enkidu's Plate, immune to backstab. He uses the Gargoyle boots to Stoneskin.
Wilson is given Spirit Armour and Improved Invisibility.
Imoen and Neera both Stoneskin.
Blaggerd uses the Gargoyle boots to Stoneskin.
Then it is time to taunt Cyric, telling him that Blaggerd will be coming for him. Cyric won't turn up and his Favored get an unfavourable welcome. Back to Amkethran where the monks attack, using Quivering Palm. We grab a key and use Mass Invisibility - Blaggerd recognising his party are at risk even if he is not. Then we make our way into Balthazar's retreat and summon a few minions before buffing. We send the minions ahead but their movement triggers automatic confrontation and we are placed facing Balthazar.
Our auras are clear and we have already used Hardiness so use Greater Whirlwind and focus our attacks on Balthazar. He survives one round but not a second, and then we are teleported to the Pocket Plane to talk to the Solar. We return so the remaining monks can retreat, with our Chain Contingencies firing at that point.
Four melee Greater Whirlwinds are active, but our casters do not think to move and some Bone Blades spawn nearby. Our casters move but the proximity is fortuitous and a Chain Contingency thins out the Bone Blades. We use a second set of Greater Whirlwind and a second Chain Contingency deals with some more Bone Blades.
Blaggerd isn't sure why the two casters have their Chain Contingencies activate so far apart in time as they are positioned quite close together. Never mind though, it was useful to have it happen.
With reduced Bone Blades and four attackers on the Ravager we can keep the pressure up, and a short while later the battle is ours.
Rather than return to Cloakwood immediately, I decided to visit the lighthouse area as I had bought some helms that protect from domination.
Though the battles there didn't go completely to plan, they were successful.
Previous updates:
The Crew vacuumed the Beregost Temple map, including using more +1 arrows on the vampiric wolves, before moving on to the Bandit Camp. The bandits outside were all shot down without trouble and Vito took Taurgosz's full plate and magical shield. Inside Tazok's tent, Venkt was tagged by a poisoned dart and failed to cast a spell - leaving the others with no real chance.
After resting to get Bhaal horror, the Crew opened up the Cloakwood, but before heading there they wanted to do the reputation quests left previously. In the process of doing that, they cleared a number of additional areas and picked up a fair amount of loot - for instance their high strength allowed them to carry 14 ankheg shells away from that area. That more than paid for one shell to be made into armor. They also got a decent cash uplift from dealing with Bassilus.
After helping Charleston Nib, the Crew turned on the Doomsayer in their first real melee contest. Against full plate, +1 shield and golden girdle the Doomsayer was up against it and failed to register a hit. In the next area, Ardrouine was reassured some worgs were no threat. The sirines nearby were then tanked initially by Vito. The final sirine managed to charm him, but that did it no good. Sil and her companions all had their invisibility attempts interrupted and failed to make any impression - their deaths gave the Crew level 6. The golems in the cave were then quickly shot down.
On the way down to the Cloud Peaks, Borda successfully got mirrors up and those protected him just long enough to at least do a bit of damage with a magic missile. There were no real challenges on those maps, but that left Firewine Bridge as the most southerly map not yet explored and they went there next. They used the charm ability of Algernon's Cloak for the first time there, in order to get Bentan's PfM scroll without losing reputation. Meilum was shot down before he could get near them, but Kahrk offered a stiffer test. Al had one dispelling arrow he'd looted somewhere, but he missed with that and it took a while to batter down Kahrk's defenses. By spreading spell damage around the Crew avoided any casualties, but took far more damage than any previous encounter in the run.
I thought about going into the Firewine Ruins immediately, but didn't fancy the traps and decided to go and get a bit more elemental protection first courtesy of the Helm of Defense. Vito, as the only one with decent charisma, went to talk to Shoal and managed to save against her kiss. Ogre Droth failed to cast a spell and the crew then shot Shoal - less to punish her misdeeds than to get the far greater XP than awarded for freeing her. There were another group of sirines in the area and they again managed to charm Vito - but again it did them no good.
The Helm, added to Icingbrand, ring of fire resistance and boots of grounding pushed fire resistance to 110% and lightning resistance to 70% and the Crew returned to Firewine. They took turns to lead and absorb the trap damage, but by the time they got to the other end they were all tired, despite constitutions of 19, except Al (who had boosted his constitution with the tome from the pirate cave). Nevertheless they pressed on rather than go outside to rest and have to wade through loads more kobold commandos - and they managed to prevent Lendarn casting any spells. Vito saved against a confusion from the ogre mage and it was finished off before it could complete anything else. The remainder of Gullykin was then cleared, including hammering Molkar's party into the ground.
The only area south of Beregost not yet cleared was Ulcaster and they did that next. There are a couple of challenging encounters there if SCS is installed, but in the unmodded game there's no real threat and the Wolf of Ulcaster was soon disposed of.
Their reputation is back up to 18 now, but maximising that will depend on clearing the Cloakwood Mine - which will be the next target.
Vito - L6, 70 HPs, 232 kills, 0 deaths, **** scimitar / ** darts
Baby Face - L6, 75 HPs, 216 kills, 0 deaths, **** long sword / ** crossbow
Mad Dog - L6, 85 HPs, 186 kills, 0 deaths, **** axe / ** dual wielding
Carlo - L6, 69 HPs, 259 kills, 0 deaths, **** flail / ** sling
Bugsy - L6, 83 HPs, 200 kills, 0 deaths, **** hammer / ** shortbow
Al (PC) - L6, 81 HPs, 287 kills, **** 2-handed sword / ** longbow
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1111901/#Comment_1111901
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1112066/#Comment_1112066
A combination of my holiday being over and getting up quite a bit later than usual (possibly as an unconscious protest at my holiday being over ) meant I didn't manage my usual early morning mage session, but I managed to sneak one in after supper.
At the Bandit Camp I memorized lots of sleeps for the basic bandits. Taurgosz rushing out was dealt with by invisibility, web, malison and skull traps. Inside the tent I decided a couple of webs would be enough without bothering with blinding opponents - and none of them moved.
Resting provided me slow poison as a Bhaal power. I normally prefer horror for solo characters, but the mage has much better disabling options for enemies anyway.
I skipped invisibly through the Cloakwood before using grease and web to disable Drasus & co. After sneaking downstairs, 3 skull traps from out of sight proved too much for Davaeorn and his battle horrors.
In the City I spent a while learning new spells before undertaking the poison quest. Lothander failed to make his getaway after his normal speedy exit was hugely delayed by a grease field. Even the mighty Larze was reduced to a crawl and failed to get anywhere near me even after the field itself disappeared. Marek saw me disappear before his eyes before being webbed from out of sight.
With only a few minutes left in the session I just did a bit of inventory sorting and selling before saving.
Mage L9, 51 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 241 kills
We ease into combat with Melissan, managing to injure her despite saving special abilities for later. This could prove to be foolhardy but two Chain Contingencies lower her resistance and four Wiltings send her reeling for extra essence. Rasaad faces his sternest test at this point. He fails... The first essence pool sees Blaggerd naturally immune to level-drain, Sarevok uses the Runehammer +5 and Rasaad uses the Spectral Brand +5. Wilson observes as the rest of us pick the enemies apart.
Our buffs are mostly intact for a second encounter with Melissan but Imoen casts another Chain Contingency before we start. Once more we save our special abilities, having used none so far. It goes well, very well indeed even if Rasaad has forgotten to switch back to fists.
Sarevok has no armour but has jumped back into melee, while Imoen and Blaggerd shoot from distance - both trying to keep away from other attackers chasing them. Blaggerd is pouring blood heavily so it is looking bleak. Imoen has a Spell Trigger memorised so uses that at some point.
Neera raises Rasaad and he leaps into melee. He makes a difference for the brief time he is present then slumps dead a second time. Melissan is badly wounded by our efforts though, and we just hold on long enough for her to retreat again. There is a nabassu in our way so Sarevok melees it as Blaggerd Imoen and Neera shoot. Neera uses some Raise Dead scrolls to keep Rod of Resurrection charges to a minimum (1x10 unused, 1x6 left so plenty but we intend to keep as many charges available as possible).
Blaggerd summons a Fallen Deva as we gulp healing potions. Then we buff again and use a skeleton warrior to draw out a few enemies from the third essence pool. A succubus arrives, followed by a Fallen Solar. That's our target so we ignore the succubus and go for broke - skeleton first hoping the Fallen Solar targets that with it's vorpal attacks.
We get the solar but Wilson has been dominated. He's reasonably safe to ignore so we kill the succubus, then one marilith, then go for a tag-attack on the Alu-fiend and remaining marilith. Neera has taken some poison so the Fallen Deva's last favour is to stop that.
Melissan is hard-pressed to stop us although our attempts to Wilt her fail - so the lowering of her magic resistance via Pierce Magic within Chain Contingency must have significantly helped us earlier. We can use some magic reduction but our four attackers plus a Planetar will get there first and that is what happens.
Party inventory a few seconds before Melissan concedes. & NPC epilogues (no mention of Rasaad quietly contemplating in his Big Metal Unit).
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1111901/#Comment_1111901
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1112066/#Comment_1112066
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1112290/#Comment_1112290
Back to an early-morning start as I made progress through the City. I didn't actually need to investigate the ship moored in the harbour, but did it anyway - and a first use of darts of stunning saw immediate problems for Desreta.
Nearly all the encounters went pretty much according to plan. I did accidentally kill Ragefast before talking to Ramazith, meaning he hopped up to the top of his tower. However, a web from behind one of the bookcases set him up for the kill.
At the Iron Throne Alai finally succumbed to the 7th attempt to blind him (his ring of free action means he's more difficult to disable than the others). Webs, MMM, skull traps and chaos then left only Gardush alive - and he could be run round without using any resources.
The session closed after reporting to Duke Eltan and being transported back to Candlekeep.
Mage L9, 51 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 256 kills
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1112203/#Comment_1112203
In the first Cloakwood area, the most likely threat was Seniyad successfully completing a call lightning spell - but that was never probable.
In the second area, Vito used the ring of free action to trip the web traps. The phase spiders don't attack immediately after teleporting, so as long as you're not surprised it's easy enough to shoot them up without allowing them any attacks (being poisoned by them would be dangerous as the party currently has no form of allowed curing for poison). Vito nipped in and out of the nest to draw Centeol's crew out in manageable chunks and allow Al to grab Spiders' Bane.
In the third area the Shadow Druids failed to last long enough to complete a spell. Amarande probably would have done, but his attempted spell was interrupted by the damage.
In the fourth area the hamadryad managed one charm attempt - which failed. I didn't fancy fighting wyverns in the fairly close quarters of the cave, so they were pulled outside to be shot.
In the fifth area Vito showed himself to Drasus - pulling him back into massed fire. A first use of Bhaal horror affected both Rezdan and Genthore. Realizing the problem, Kysus showed himself - and immediately died. Inside the mine the Crew continued to try and divide and conquer where possible and hammer any mages hard where not. On the bottom level a pair of battle horrors were pulled back and slaughtered. Vito then tanked Davaeorn's lightning bolt and fireball before the others set a trap for his final dimension door ...
Talking to the slave outside the mine took reputation to 20, but Vito's charisma was only 19 so items still looked a bit expensive for my taste . However, the route to Baldur's Gate was now open and they knew where to find a Helm of Glory. Jardak is a decent fighter, but not up to dealing with 6 decent fighters. Talking of decent fighters I only realized on arrival in the City that the Crew had got the XP for level 7 at some point in the Cloakwood Mine. They duly levelled up before going on a shopping spree.
Back in the City I got a bit lazy after looking at their tougher status and wasn't so careful about spreading them out against mages. That led to 4 of them being affected by a single horror in Sorcerous Sundries. They still won the battle comfortably enough, but that acted as a reminder not to take chances and risk spoiling my record of no deaths to date. After Larze found even his melee power insufficient against a massed attack, Marek was another to fail to complete a spell.
Continuing this morning, the Crew noticed a mage rushing round the City like a blue-arsed fly, but they were working through encounters in a much more comprehensive way. However, I'd already forgotten the warning yesterday about being careful and all of the Crew piled in to the house with the ogre magi immediately after loading the game. It would have been far safer for only 1 to go in as, when they tried to retreat from a horror spell, they got stuck in the doorway. It was pretty lucky that both Vito and Al remained under control after the horror and a follow-up confusion - if everyone had lost control there would almost certainly have been casualties. However, Vito did good work with 5 darts of stunning to put two of the ogre magi out of action, while Al poisoned at least another 2 with arrows of biting. It was still touch and go whether everyone would survive, but they just made it.
The fight at the Helm & Cloak could have been similarly problematic, but this time I did plan for it. Vito successfully dragged Gretek into the back room without allowing him close enough to talk - allowing everyone else to get free opening attacks on the other enemies. Only seconds later everyone else was dead and the Crew went to rescue Gorpel Hind from Gretek.
There was no hint of trouble in any of the remaining City encounters. At the Iron Throne they took a cautious approach by using fireballs for the first time to soften up the opponents - four of the Crew now had Necklaces, while the others threw in potions. Two of the casters survived that, but neither completed a spell thereafter.
After reporting to Duke Eltan, the Crew have also just arrived back at Candlekeep.
Vito - L7, 84 HPs, 311 kills, 0 deaths, **** scimitar / ** darts
Baby Face - L7, 91 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 293 kills, 0 deaths, **** long sword / ** crossbow
Mad Dog - L7, 95 HPs, 253 kills, 0 deaths, **** axe / ** dual wielding
Carlo - L7, 76 HPs, 350 kills, 0 deaths, **** flail / ** sling
Bugsy - L7, 98 HPs, 263 kills, 0 deaths, **** hammer / ** shortbow
Al (PC) - L7, 89 HPs, 368 kills, **** 2-handed sword / ** longbow
Upon taking on the Section HQ we were highly successful and emerged victorious.
EDIT
We only had enough gold for one wand, a wand of monster summoning with 200 charges, probably the last time I'll have enough gold to buy one of those. We only have 5 charges each on the wands of fire, so hope that our extravagance in buying it doesn't rebound on us.
Today, Dozier the barbarian died in the sewers beneath Athkatla, a freaking goblin cast “hold person” and I thought rage was up but I was wrong.
Standard magic attacks won't get through his magic resistance, but it should be possible to surround him invisibly and launch a melee assault - I've not tried that though and am not sure how easy it is to hit him.
Last question: how do you take out Drizzt in BGI so easily?
@Klorox now I do have lots of experience in killing Drizzt . With a party he's easy as you can just kite him round while shooting him. That's possible solo as well and I have quite often in the past allowed the gnolls to damage him a bit and then kited him. With a level 1 character that's pretty painful though as the number of critical hits required can be high and it's not that easy to get enough distance to shoot him safely. You also need to beware of his two charm spells and, potentially, of entangle. With though a level 8 fighter, buffed up, equipped with boots of speed and using arrows of piercing, killing him directly yourself is pretty quick and easy .
With a low-level character the risk free way to kill him is to approach cautiously his position to activate one or more gnolls without getting into sight of Drizzt. You may find the first gnoll you spot will attack you, not Drizzt, and require you to kill them - but any subsequent gnolls will go straight after the drow. If you're only interested in his equipment you can circle right round Drizzt, activating all the gnolls. It then only takes them a few minutes to kill him, though typically Drizzt will partially activate in the process and kill one of them.
If you want to get his XP with a low-level character, you're better off just activating one or two gnolls. It is possible to activate a lot more, but that increases the chances of them getting the kill. With a single gnoll I reckon it is safe to let it attack for about 20 minutes (at 60 fps), letting the game run in the background while I do something else. If the gnoll has broken its weapon then just let it continue attacking until Drizzt is unconscious and then shoot him dead. If the gnoll has not broken its weapon then retreat off the map to reset the combat - keep doing that until a weapon does break. I used to specifically monitor how much damage he took (from memory I think he has 92 HPs and may cast cure medium wounds as well), but these days I tend not to bother with that and just use rough timings.
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1111901/#Comment_1111901
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1112066/#Comment_1112066
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1112290/#Comment_1112290
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1112328/#Comment_1112328
In Candlekeep I skipped straight upstairs to surrender myself for transport to the catacombs. There, MGoI protected against traps while the tombs were being knocked open. I just sneaked past the dopplegangers, but couldn't resist giving Prat's gang the web treatment. The skeleton summoned for those then tanked the basilisks on the way out.
Back in Baldur's Gate I thought I would once more make more use of a grease field - this time that prevented Slythe from getting to grips with me as he was shot down with MMMs. I have tried grease at the palace before and found it didn't work well - largely because when the dopplegangers change they remove any status effects. This time I tried it again, but added teleport field into the mixture. A chaos immediately after the dopplegangers changed helped to ensure they could not consistently target the dukes and a follow-up malison pretty much ensured they would get greased to prevent them moving back quickly after being teleported (and made them more vulnerable to darts of stunning). That all worked fairly well and the dukes still had decent HPs in hand when the last of the dopplegangers fell.
Apart from tripping one of the lightning traps (and hastily gulping an absorption potion) there was no trouble in the maze. The Undercity party joined the "we hate grease and maze" list on the way to the temple. I moved forward invisibly there to trigger Sarevok's dialogue and persuade Semaj to teleport out. I was hoping that 3 skull traps from out of sight would kill him, but it didn't quite. I had endless fire balls available, but was determined to kill him with skull traps and (unfortunately) found I had a scroll of that in my bag. The problem with those is that the scrolls are bugged. Rather than the sight range you get with the spell itself, the range is only about half of that - meaning I would be in sight well before the spell cast. I could of course have used buffs to protect myself, but I hadn't been intending to do that in the temple and just hoped that I would beat Semaj to the draw. He only had 8 HPs left, so I expected the skull trap to kill him. As it happened though, I was dominated and the skull trap didn't even kill him anyway .